31/7/2010

Author Anne Rice, who publicly returned to her Christian faith a few years ago after years as an atheist, has renounced her membership of the Christian church, while remaining a follower and worshiper of Jesus Christ.

Here’s the full text of her two Facebook posts:

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

I’m with her on all those issues: they’re the places where the values Jesus himself taught rub up against what the institutionalised church has become.

Christians keep saying ‘we must look to Jesus, not to people’, and they’re right… but the claim is always that the people will more and come to reflect Jesus. If they’re not, then maybe they’re not the people we need to be associating with?

I dunno, still all confusing. But the challenge for me is that I have certain values and beliefs that are firmly grounded in Christian faith and teaching, but experience the contradiction of those values in almost every public action of Christians.

2 responses to “I know exactly how she feels”

“For those who care, and I understand if you donâ€™t: Today I quit being a Christian. Iâ€™m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being â€œChristianâ€ or to being part of Christianity. Itâ€™s simply impossible for me to â€œbelongâ€ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, Iâ€™ve tried. Iâ€™ve failed. Iâ€™m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. Iâ€™m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

Iâ€™m happy that she refuses to be anti-gay/feminist/science/etc. But educated people like her donâ€™t get bonus points for being tolerant and rational. Itâ€™s to be expected.

She’s not distancing herself from Christianity she’s distancing herself from the ‘bad part’ of the bell curve. It’s akin to me saying:

“I refuse to be an Atheist because I refuse to be an arrogant, know-it-all dick. I refuse to treat religion with hatred and contempt.”

She’s still a Christian, she just wants to publicly distance herself from the crazy Christians and comes off as trying to get respect for it in the process. In the end she still believes in the same nonsensical stuff that the rest of the Christian faith does.

I canâ€™t see how any exalted novelist or fiction writer, such as herself, could still believe the Bible. The story telling methods in it should be obvious even to the amateur writer. Theyâ€™re the same things used by the writer in making consistent his or her own prose. Writing tropes, mythological stories, archetypes, etc. provide literary reasons to reject the Bible, even as logic and science and scepticism give plenty of other reasons…

I dunno, I think you’re ‘doing a Dawkins’ – confusing fundamentalists and literalists with all Christians. There are people who totally understand all the tropes, mythic language and so on, and who don’t read the Scriptures literally, and still believe.